Finally! Good News About Public Education Funding

I have been attending school board meetings regularly for almost a year.  It has been a year of budget woes and bad news after bad news.  Last night’s board meeting was a welcome change to that pattern.

The passage of Proposition 30 has stopped the budget cuts to education.  After 5 years of cuts, the governor has an optimistic plan to restore funding over the next 7.  It is not perfect.  From what I understand, it will take California 7 years to get back to where we were 5 years ago (yikes).  But let us focus on the positive and take this opportunity to reach out to our school district leaders to let them know what parents want.  

WHAT DO PARENTS WANT?

There are so many questions to be asked and so much to be discussed.

What has the last 5 years of budget cuts meant to you and your student(s)?

What programs do you want to see restored?

Are you OK with what was lost and think CVUSD could bring in new programs?  What are those new programs?

How can CVUSD best serve the students of our community?

What is important enough that you will raise your voice and demand that it be brought back to CVUSD?

• Class size reduction?
• Music?
• Athletics?
• Counselors?
• After-school programs?
• Art?
• More parent education?

How will this money reach every student?  How can we make sure in this money is spent equitably to benefit every student in Castro Valley?

The Parent Movement will have a meeting soon so that we can sit around casually over coffee and brainstorm about what we’d like to see in CVUSD and how to best communicate that to our district leaders.  What a change from last year and what a wonderful position to be in.  Stay tuned, we hope you will join us.

Parents in Castro Valley have been amazing in their support of public education.